Microsoft

The personal offices, free insurance, nice morale events – all used to be...

No interesting relevant products to work on. Very political – all technical decisions are made on the basis of how to please the upper ups, who are usually, to put it mildly, less technically savvy. What is valued is so-called "visibility" rather than true quality of work. And the most ironic of all: while Microsoft is giving the customer one of the best development technologies and environments in the world, it is greatly lagging behind in using it for its own products. Management is dominated by the "old school" people who worked in the company in the 90s and sometimes in the 80s. They invested tremendous amounts of time in old-time coding skills and greatly resent, if not always openly resent, the move forward with technology and skills, coming up with ridiculous excuses to justify it.

While making technical decisions, try to worry more about what your developers think rather than what Jo the GM will say. Take risks. Have true vision for once. Reward talented, hardworking people instead of "yes men".